Scripture reference: Joshua 24:19-24 NKJV; Matthew 6:24 NKJV; Romans 5:3-8 MSG
Pastor Sharon:
Father, right now, we pray for Pastor John. Glory to You, Lord. Your messenger that You have sent with a message and You fully release Your power for our deliverance, Lord. For our change. You release Your power for our change. You release Your power in us by the message You bring this morning, for maturity. You give us correction, we receive correction. We receive reproof. We receive rebuke, we receive direction, we receive instruction. We receive revelation, we receive everything. We receive encouragement from Your Word. We receive comfort. We receive comfort, we receive the spirit of prophecy, inspired speaking that comes through Pastor John to us this morning, Lord. We receive everything that we need, Lord. In the precious and mighty name of Jesus, Lord. And we thank You that all of our ears are open to hear. Our spiritual ears are open to hear. Our spiritual eyes are open to see. Oh, and our hearts receive. We declare that together. In the name of Jesus this morning and we all say amen. Thank you, Pastor John.
Pastor John:
Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Praise Jesus. Glory to God. Well, every time I hear the word of God, every time, the message of truth is declared to me, I’m always confronted, aren’t you? I’m always confronted because we live in a world where darkness and lies and deceit are the order of the agenda of the world system. And so, every day I’m confronted with the truth to live the truth instead of a lie. To live in truth instead of deceit. And I pray that every time you come to church it’s my trust and my belief, that from the moment you come here and experience true and living relationships, that you will also experience true and living worship and that you will experience the true and living Word, that will nourish you and will uplift you and give you strength to face the world that is dark and without love. It’s got its own agenda. But we have the Spirit of Truth. Hallelujah. And so if you agree with me; when you leave today, you will be nourished and strengthened and prepared to know God in a much greater and strengthened way. In Jesus’ name. Amen. Before you sit down and just say; I’m glad you’re here today, open your ears. And then tell that to someone else and then you can sit down, please. Thank you. Praise the Lord.
Last night, I found myself putting money in my wallet. You know, South African rands and I didn’t really know why because I’m not going to be in South Africa much longer. I need dollars in my wallet, not rands. And then the Lord began to just work on my heart that we need to have an intentional offering this morning. Because He just began to work with me that there are many people here, many people that will be watching online, that are looking to God for some kind of breakthrough, some kind of intervention, some new growth, something, a new insight, a new idea, a new way of going forward financially. Hallelujah.
Well, you know, it’s a strange thing that the man who started the World Economic Forum is not employed by anybody. He’s not elected by anybody. He just has a great deal of influence because a lot of very wealthy people give him money to run a wealth agenda. A political agenda that has got lots of money connected to it. And they are trying to influence the world system through the use of money. Right? Now, the more you look at everything that’s going on around you, you have to say that this is the time when Christians need to be awake. Money is not a problem. How much money you have and how little you have, is not a problem, or should not be a problem for the Christian. It’s your association to money that is the issue.
You either love it, or you hate it. Or you hate that you don’t love it, or you love that you hate it. Or you’re indifferent to it. And you think there are other things that can, you know, deserve less of your time and less of your attention. But I’ve come to realize through all the years that I’ve now been on the earth, and from many that have gone before me and read and listened and watched and learned that whether you like it or not, this is what causes the major problems on the earth because people love it. And they don’t, I mean, this is just paper. I mean, I don’t love paper. They love what the power of this thing can give them. They love what it can buy them, they love what it can do for them. They love the goods that it can get them.
And when you don’t have it, you can love it as much as someone who’s got lots of it. Sometimes people love it more that don’t have it, and then they go steal it. Or they try to sell drugs or commit crimes to get it. So money, money is not something you can ignore. I’m going to use a scripture later on in the service today about you can’t serve two gods at once. And that scripture specifically talks about the god of mammon or the god of money and how you can’t love money and love God at the same time. So, I’m going to spend a minute, just a minute or two, to tell you how subconsciously this, [Pastor John holds up money] is driving your life.
So, if I don’t have it to go and buy food or pay rent; if I don’t have it to do what I want to do, what do I have to do to get it? What do I have to do to get this (money) so I can do what I have to do? Or do what I want to do if I am already in the place that I’ve got enough to do what I have to do? When you start to think like that, this (money) is already driving your agenda. Because what you’re doing is you’re taking a need or a desire and you’re saying; what must I do to get enough to make my need or my desire come true? So, you start to think about the future through the lens of money. So then your behaviour starts to get driven by money choices.
And people might say, “Pastor John, you seem to be wearing a nice suit.” Do I look nice today? [Congregation: Yes.] Thank you. Thank you. “You’re wearing a nice suit, you seem to have enough money.” I wasn’t always like this. There was much of my life where I had no money and had to believe God for the next meal for my kids and for me. I know what it’s like to not have money. But I also know what it is like to trust God to get provision, not money. Because God is the Provider, He’s not the money man. He may meet your needs through money, but He’s the Provider.
You see if I start to focus my life around money, then this (money) starts to drive my agenda and it starts to potentially drive my desires. So, what do I need to do to have a healthy relationship towards money? Well, what I’ve got to do is to start seeing money as a tool, not something that I must get or chase or try to pursue so that I can have enough. This (money) is just a tool.
People that have a lot of power will tell you how much value this tool has because this tool gets them what they want. They own people through this tool. Come on. I’d go so far as to say the major governments of the world are not controlled by the politics, it’s controlled by the money power that’s behind what their personal agendas want and people buy them. Then they buy the policies and the politics of the nation or the governing of the people – and then that’s us. Then we think money is not influencing our lifestyle.
So, why am I being so blatant about this today and why am I being so upfront about it? It’s because as a rule in recent times, the Lord has really had our ministry focus more on other things, but the Lord just kind of alerted me this weekend and said, “John, I want you to talk about this for a little bit,” because we can’t afford deception to come into our ministry.
The Lord said to me, “You have been preaching on intentional relationships and so as you preach,” and I’m going to speak about it again today; intentional relationships. When you sow seeds, you can give your tithes every month and a lot of you, most of you, actually give your tithes and your offerings through digital media – EFT or something like that. And money leaves your account and it’s just digital numbers. Sometimes, we just have to take a step back and say; I need to be more intentional about this and I need to think about what my relationship is to what my giving is. Right? Because we can get into the habit of just giving because it is a habit, but actually, it is part of our worship. It’s not just a habit of tithe, it should be part of your worship. If there is something that prevents your worship from leaving your hands, then you better evaluate how important the equation is.
So, the Lord just wanted me to highlight to you today and we need to be deliberate, intentional and focused on this for a little bit, that as intentional as we are about relationships, you have to be intentional about not allowing money to control you, but to allow your relationship with God to be the Source of your life, which means He can provide your need in any way, it doesn’t have to be by giving money in your account.
So, you might say, “Well, Pastor John, how does that happen?” It can happen in many ways, but if it does have to include a financial transaction, it’s about the transaction, not the money. Because God can meet your needs, whatever it takes, without you focusing on money. You focus on the Source.
Well, you know, the people that left Egypt and went into Israel, they lived for forty years without making bread or having to provide for themselves. God made water come out of a rock, He made bread to feed them every day.
And if I take the Bible as the source and the foundation of my life, then I have to believe that the Bible can provide my needs. Why is it the Bible? Because it is not about written words on a page, neither is it about the currency that is written on this paper (money). It’s about the powers that control the pages. The people that control these pages (money), can control your life. The God that has written His Word on pages is the God that can control your life, if you give Him the right to. So, which do you give more control to? Manmade pages or God’s-made pages? Hallelujah.
So, we’re going to take up an offering right now and I would like you… whatever you’ve got. If you’ve got just R10 or whatever you’ve got in your hands today. I’d like you to take it in your hand, and so, we are going to pray over it before we take up the offering today.
Pastor Sharon
Pastor John, it came into my heart that there are specific people here, it’s not everybody, specific people here that say, “I should have brought cash this morning.” And I just want to help them.
Pastor John
Okay, so if there’s someone that didn’t bring cash and you need cash to put in the offering, Pastor Sharon will give you some money to come put in the offering. I know she’s got money in her wallet because some of that went from me to her last night. She always has. Hallelujah.
There’s a young man over there, come, young man, come. Praise the Lord. This is how things get done in the kingdom of God. This is how the Word works. He gives seed for sowing and bread for eating. Hallelujah.
Come, Caleb, come up here. Come and get it. So, she (Pastor Sharon) doesn’t have to run. No, I want him to come to you. She’s running around the building. She wants to get fit this morning. She’s double tasking here. Praise Jesus. Praise the Lord. Hallelujah. Glory to God, glory to Jesus.
You see, if money doesn’t own you, you can give it away. And you can actually see that if your hands are in God, then He will give you ways to get money back. And the way that you get money back is to give it out. Why should you give money out? You know, I faced this accusation for many years. My pastors, people that I’m connected to, have faced this accusation for many years; “You’re a church. You’re in church, you’re a pastor, you must actually do this thing because you need money to run the church.” Well, then you haven’t been around me long enough. Because I lived for God and I believed God for money many, many years before I was a pastor and the principles that I teach you are the principles I learned from the Word of God and lived it. Now, I teach it because I lived it because it worked for me. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. [Pastor Sharon comes to the front] You want to preach this morning, my babes?
Pastor Sharon
It’s interesting to me that this came up this morning. This morning as I was praying, I was very aware, the Lord impressed on my heart that there are people here that have really been giving. And He just impressed on my heart, they really have clout with Him. They don’t have to have perfect lives, but they’ve been generous givers. And these people have real clout with Him and that He wants you to ask Him to help you with specific things.
Pastor John
That’s trust.
Pastor Sharon
He wants you to ask Him, to have confidence to ask Him to help you with specific things.
Pastor John
Amen. Amen. So take your money in your hand now. And just say; Lord, and you pray this with me, I’m gonna pray and you can just agree with me in the end, and we say, Lord, we thank You that You’ve given us seed to sow. And as we sow a seed, You cause it to come back to us on every wave. And we thank You that every wave includes business opportunities, it includes divine connections, it includes insights and ideas, it includes whatever way that You want to get provision to us. We thank You, Lord, that You provide for us on every wave, every day, every way and Your people will never, never, never be forsaken nor given to begging for bread because You provide all of our needs. In Jesus’ name. Do you all agree with that? Everybody say amen. Let’s take up an offering, please. Hallelujah. Glory to Jesus.
Yeah, this is a freedom moment. This is a freedom moment. Praise the Lord. Hallelujah. You know, Pastor Sharon and I have been through many situations in our lives and the Lord has had me reflecting on that and I’m going to show you some pictures in a minute. But, you know, one day Sharon and I were in a conference and we’d come out of a lot of financial difficulty and we were beginning to live free of financial desperation, let’s put it that way. And so, we bought Sharon a pair of Italian shoes. Most expensive shoes we’d ever bought her. Because we’re coming out of bondage. And so, we bought her shoes. They were beautiful. She’s always had a thing for shoes and bags. And well, okay…
So, here we are in the conference, like this, a service like this, full of people. And in the conference, this is the first time she’s worn these shoes after we bought them, first time, to this conference. And we’re standing in the auditorium and she turns to me and she says, “John, the Lord wants me to give my shoes away to that lady.” So, we knew the people. We also knew that these people were wealthy people. She didn’t need to have Sharon’s shoes from a need point of view. Because we knew them and we were actually friends, Sharon knew that this, I mean, if you know another woman’s shoe size you’re quite close, you know. So, she knew this woman had the same shoe size as her. Size eight. A woman’s size eight.
So, she says to me, “The Lord wants me to give her my shoes. My natural man says; she doesn’t need your shoes. She’s got much more money than we have. Very wealthy people. She doesn’t need your shoes. The Lord says to Sharon, “Give your shoes to her.” I said to her, “How are you going to do this?” She says, “I’m going to take them off and give them to her.” I said, “Well, how are you going to walk out of the conference?” “In bare feet.” I said, “Everybody’s going to look at you.” “And so what?” She said, “I’ve got to obey God today, right now.” Well, at the end of the service. I said, “Okay.” Now I’ve got to get over myself a bit here, you know, because we just bought the shoes. I know what it cost. It was a big effort for us and this is like a breakthrough thing for us.
But here’s what God was doing. It wasn’t so much about the fact that she wanted to have shoes. It was about God showing His love to her that even though she was the money person who gave away money, God had His eye on her and that her giving was always going to bring back a harvest beyond what she had to spend to get it – number one. Number two, He was setting Sharon up to have shoes for the rest of her life. So at the end of the service, she took the shoes off, she walked up to the lady, she gave her the shoes, they had a spiritual moment together and I walked out with a barefoot woman.
And I can tell you lots of stories. I’m going to tell you another story about that in a minute, with some pictures and the Lord wanted me to do this. I had quite a moment yesterday, with the Lord about this. I need someone to come and just move this for me. [Pastor John points to the pulpit.] Just over to the side. So everybody can see the big screen when we do this, please. So yeah, thank you. So I want to just share with you some moments in my life and my life with Pastor Sharon and then I’ll talk about intentional relationships on the back of what you’re going to see here. So I want to show you that when God is taking for Himself a young generation of people, He’s intentional about it. And you’re going to see a picture of me at 18 years old and my life was completely sold out and dedicated to Jesus and that’s the only way that I did what I did when you see this picture.
So can we start the presentation, please? Start with my first picture. [Photo of Pastor John in military uniform] That’s me at 18 years old. This is at my graduation ceremony of getting my wings. I was 18 years old. I’d already gone through basics and I was about to be taught to be a fighting machine. A weapon in the hands of the government. I was about to be taught how to fight. Look how innocent I look there. I was. I was innocent. But the government was trying to change that. What do you see in those eyes? Do you see the life of God in those eyes? See, the enemy of God has never been able to snuff that out of my life. Never. Not through the military. Not through anything. He’s never been able to take the life of God that is in me.
Next picture, please. [Wedding photo of Pastor John and Pastor Sharon] I’m 20 years old here. Look at that gorgeous girl I am marrying. I’ve been married to that girl for 43 years now. And it’s the life of God and the intentional desire to love this girl the way God wants me to love her and still loves her that has brought us 43 years. Look how young I look. I had hair then. Next one, please. [Photo of Pastor John, his grandfather, his father and Brynn] This is a very unique picture because that is Brynn. You wouldn’t think that he became such a big, strapping man from that picture. But there’s my grandfather, my dad, me and Brynn. Four generations of men in that picture. God is intentional about everything that He does. That grandfather is part of the legacy of which Smith Wigglesworth was able to lay hands on my dad, that man, and dedicate him to the Lord Jesus. God is an intentional God.
Next picture, please. [Photo of Pastor John, Pastor Sharon, Brynn and Pastor Garth as children] Here are my two boys. Young family. God is intentional. We loved God then, we were serving God then and we were learning to believe God for money. What I taught you about money this morning, we were living that then. This that I’m teaching is not because I’m a pastor, it’s not because I run a church that needs finances, I was living that. We were living that together then. Believing God to feed our kids.
Next, please. [Photo of Pastor. John in a red graduation gown] That’s me graduating from Rhema Bible training centre. Next, please. [Photo of Pastor John, Pastor Sharon and Brother Jerry] This is 1998. February of 1998, Brother Jerry came to dedicate the JSMI building in South Africa. And we took this picture, it’s a bit of a weird picture but anyway, it’s what I’ve got. Look how young Brother Jerry looks. Hey? So I just want to share a few things with you, Sharon and I bought that building so that Brother Jerry could have his office in that building. We furnished that building with our own money so that he didn’t have to pay for it. It was the biggest seed we’d ever sown into the ministry, into anybody’s ministry up to that point. There is the building, there is the proof. When I talk to you about sowing seed intentionally, we go back a long way. This is not just something that we tried to talk to you about because the ministry needs to get to the next level or whatever the case might be. We’ve been living this a long time. A long time.
When Brother Jerry came into these buildings and he saw how lavish they were and how well they were kitted out, he kind of said to me, “Well, John, how much do I owe you to pay you for what you’ve done here?” And I said, “Nothing, Brother Jerry. It’s all paid for.” Hallelujah. God had blessed me financially in the corporate world to the extent when he asked me, “Well, John, how much money did you earn in the corporate world? I want to pay you more.” I said, “You can’t afford me, Brother Jerry.” I don’t think he’s had anybody in employment tell him that before, but he couldn’t afford me. Hallelujah. But that goes back a few years – 1998 and we are sitting in 2023 and our relationship had begun 18 months before that already. Next picture, please.
[Photo of Pastor John and Pastor Sharon] Now we’re becoming pastors and ministry leaders for Jerry Savalle. So we have to have pictures. Next one, please. [Photo of Pastor John and Pastor Sharon with Brother Joe and Joyce] This is a much more modern-day picture. Look, we’ve all got less hair now, got more wrinkles now. And now we’re sitting in Brother Jerry’s jet and here is the evidence of divine relationships that go back more than 27 years. And people want to know, “Well, Pastor John, how do you get to sit on his private aeroplane and be in this kind of relationship?” It’s because we’ve been intentional about relationships and we’ve never quit on them. We’ve always kept going on it and we’ve always stayed faithful and true to what God’s called us to not what circumstances say we must go after.
Next one, please. [Photo of Pastor John and Pastor Sharon with Brother Jerry and Richard Roberts] And this is just another legacy picture for you to talk to you about intentional relationships. Because this is Richard Roberts here, the son of Oral Roberts, who Oral Roberts came to South Africa in 1955 with a crusade that my dad sowed half of his inheritance money into Oral Roberts’ crusade, and Oral Roberts and Richard Roberts… Richard Roberts is now this close to Jerry Savelle. Oral Roberts is Jerry Savelle’s spiritual grandfather and I’m with Brother Jerry. You think God’s not intentional about stuff. Sometimes it takes a little bit longer than we think. But here’s the good news for you; if you’re intentional about the relationship, Pastor Sharon preached this… Can I have the pulpit back? I’m done with the presentation, now. Thank you.
Did you enjoy that? Hallelujah. I got really emotional about this yesterday. And I’m glad I had all my emotion yesterday with Pastor Sharon and me going through some of these pictures because I wasn’t sure I was going to share it with you this morning. But when I was awake this morning, I felt this is where the Lord wanted me to go to show you what intentional relationships do. That’s just part of our story, what I showed you now is just part of our story. It’s not all of our story. Our story will take a long time to actually tell you all of it. And so praise the Lord. It’s just like Brother Jerry has got so many stories, he can tell you a long time about how God has blessed his life through intentional relationships. Hallelujah.
You know, the world has hijacked God’s way of doing relationships because God is a covenant God. And so the world says, “Well, we…” They can’t live by covenant because they don’t have the stuff to honour covenant. So the world talks about networking, going to the right colleges, going to the right schools, having the right job, having a network. Well, where do you think they got it from? They got it from the family of God. Because we are supposed to network with God, the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit and you are a majority. You are a divine covenant network that can get anything done. I’m teaching good.
Whatever you want in your life, it’s your choice. It’s no one else’s choice. It’s your choice. I’m going to share something with you in a minute. But I just want to read to you the Word of God from Joshua chapter 24. The New King James Version says, 19 But Joshua said to the people, “You cannot serve the Lord, for He is a holy God. He is a jealous God.” (Joshua 24:19 NKJV) Well, you might say, well, you know, jealousy is a bad thing. No, God desires to have an intentional relationship with you. He’s not just this god that’s out there in the universe, that He wants everybody to praise Him and glorify Him and He wants to wait to see how much you praise Him and glorify Him before He gives you anything that you ask for. No, He is intentional about His love to you and He wants you to be intentional about your love for Him.
He will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins. 20 If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, (Joshua 24:19-20 NKJV) like money, or like a system that you think the system owns your future, or the system is what you must work to get your future. Your trust is either in the system or it’s in God, it’s either in money or it’s in God. “Well, Pastor John, how do you break free of the system?” You’ve got to put more of God into you than the system. If you think of the system and you put the system into you and think about work in the system, then that’s what you’re going to do. But if you put God into you, then God comes out of you when you need it. Otherwise, you have system talk. And the more system talk you have, performance talk you have, the more achievement talk you have, the more you talk about the way the system is working for you, the more you trust the system. I can tell how much people put store into the system by their words and their actions.
Many years ago, Kenneth Hagin preached and he said, “I can just walk into someone’s house and I can tell whether they live in faith or not.” Because there are things that you can observe about people’s life and you can see where they put their trust. 20 If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, then He will turn and do you harm and consume you, after He has done you good.” In other words, God has shown you, His people, all of His good and then you turn against Him and serve other gods and say these other gods are the ones that have got answers for me, not the God that has given us all this goodness. 21 And the people said to Joshua, “No, but we will serve the Lord!” 22 So Joshua said to the people, “You are witnesses against yourself, You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen the Lord for yourselves, in other words, this is not somebody that forced anybody to choose anything, you made the choice to serve Him.” And they said, “We are witnesses!” 23 “Now therefore,” he said, “put away the foreign gods which are among you, and incline your heart to the Lord God of Israel.” 24 And the people said to Joshua, “The Lord our God we will serve, and His voice we will obey!” (Joshua 20:20-24 NKJV) The Lord God we will serve and His voice we will obey. Okay.
What are you going to believe? What are you going to believe? Are you going to believe what your eyes tell you? Are you going to believe what voices are telling you, what your ears hear? Are you going to believe what’s in your bank account? Or are you going to believe the Lord God Almighty? Who are you choosing to believe? Okay, let’s talk about this for a minute. The more you live your life in the natural realm, the more you have natural realm talk, the more you have natural realm ideas, the more you connect with people in business, the more you’re going to have to give yourself to the Word to counterbalance what you are dealing with in the natural world. Otherwise, the natural world becomes your belief system more than what God says.
This is not hard to see how people can live like this. You live in a sensory world, a physical world. And now we are asked to actually put our trust in something you can’t see, someone you can’t talk to, that responds back to you other than in your spirit, but you can phone a bank manager or you can phone a business connection or you can make things happen. So, it’s not hard to see how people can trust in their natural world or the system rather than in God. So how are you going to make the switch from living in one, but also living in the other? Well, you have to make the choice what you’re going to trust. It’s a choice every day. It’s not a choice that you make once. Yes, you make it once but it’s a choice you’ve got to keep making every day.
You know, in the Christian world, uhm no, I’m going to say in the church world… No, I’m going to use a different word. In the religious world, in the world of religions… I mean, I had to take control of my humanity on Friday because I went to go and have a haircut so that when I’m on tour with motorbikes and that, I can take my helmet off easily and I don’t have to worry about all this massive hair I’ve got, putting it in place afterwards, you know. And so, I had to wait, I had to wait outside the barber shop there for 20 minutes because these guys were at the mosque. They were at Friday afternoon prayers. So, when I’m sitting on the chair I asked the guy, I said, “So you were at prayer?” He said, “Yes.” So, I was miffed because I had to wait 20 minutes because they’ve got a signboard outside there that says open seven days a week but they’re closed. So, okay. Anyway, so then he told me he had the sign stolen. So, I said, “Well, you must make a point of putting a piece of paper on there; closed on Fridays 12 to 2.” Anyway, dis my storie daai.
So, I asked him, “So you went to mosque to pray?” “Yes,” he said, “Us Muslims, we pray four times a day. We pray in the morning, we pray at night, we pray at lunchtime and we have afternoon prayers.” Four times a day, they pray. They’re supposed to pray. So, they don’t go to and do all the prayers, they pray on Fridays at lunchtime. But the mosque is going and has prayers four times a day. If you go to talk to the Jews and you go to the Jewish religions, they’ve got all kinds of feasts, they’ve got all kinds of prayers, they’ve got all kinds of traditions of praying and things that they need to do. If you go to the Christians, Christians also have traditions of how they have chosen to serve God.
None of those things means you have trust in God. None of what you do means you trust God because your behaviour doesn’t mean you’ve made a choice. Huh? It means you’re doing something because you know it’s the right thing to do, not because you believe in it. It’s an insurance policy for you, it’s not a lifestyle. So, if your walk with God is an insurance policy and you can make it a tick on the box and say I have prayed and I’ve read the Bible, therefore, look, I’ve got it covered, I tithe every month, I’ve got it covered.
Well, that doesn’t mean to say when you’re faced with true confrontation of life, that you’re going to put your trust in God. Because trust in God is a choice that says when I read the pages of the Bible, when I read the book that is the Bible, I’m not reading words that don’t mean anything to me. I’m reading words that are the very source of life. I receive them into my spirit, I speak them out of my mouth, I live them in my world – they are the very essence of the foundation of my life. Everything I do is on the basis of what those words say because it takes me to a Person, not to a system.
I’m not trying to take care of the system of the church so that I can also live in the system of the world. That is why the scripture says you cannot serve two masters. You will love the one or hate the other. I’m so glad you asked me where that Scripture is. It’s in Matthew chapter 6 verse 24, 24 No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. (Matthew 6:24 NKJV) You cannot serve God and the system that creates your trust. Did you hear what I said? You cannot say I trust God but I’m also going to trust in the system. Because one day there is going to be a confrontation – which system do you trust?
Do you know that there is a lot of talk happening in all the governments of the world at the moment that is trying to bring in an answer to cryptocurrency? And the way that they are wanting to bring an answer to cryptocurrency, because cryptocurrency is a trading value mechanism that is outside of the control and outside of the governing system of the governments of the world. It is a threat to governments. But it’s a big advantage to people who want to live outside of the government, outside of tax systems. But it is a highly volatile system because it’s not regulated by anything. It’s only regulated by perception. Cryptocurrency. But it’s been shown to be of great value to people who want to move assets around the world without governments interfering. Cryptocurrency. Terrorist organisations can use it. Many other reasons people can use cryptocurrency.
So there is a big conversation happening right at the moment in the US government. In fact, it was announced in the last couple of weeks, there’s been an announcement by the Reserve Bank, or the Fed Reserve, as they call it in America, that they are about to introduce digital currency, a digital currency into the US system. In other words, they are about to create a digital currency that is divorced from paper. So everything that they are beginning to do is now going to be digital.
This is already the case in Israel, by the way, if you didn’t know this. In Israel, all transactions that exceed a certain amount, and I’ve forgotten an amount now, but I believe it’s $5,000, I think US dollars. I’m not certain. You can get me on that point, but it’s anything that exceeds a certain amount may not be in cash, it has to be a digital transaction. They’ve implemented a system in Israel that is already a digital currency-based system. What’s happening? Well, there’s going to come a time where there is no more paper in the world, it’s all going to be digital.
Just by the way, if you earn income, most of your income is not in paper. Most of your income is just in numbers that reflect in an account. So you take a certain amount of numbers and you go and give a piece of plastic or you take a computer and you transfer a certain amount of numbers into someone else’s numbered account that reflects those numbers. But there’s no paper changing hands. It’s just a transfer of numbers. So it’s not inconceivable to think that in the next 10 years that there will be so little paper in the world, that if you don’t have some form of sim card, some kind of plastic, some kind of way of doing transactions, that you won’t be able to transact because everything will be digital. Huh? Huh. This sounds very much like we’re getting closer to control of choices.
I’ve said this before, I’ll say it again, if we knew how devastatingly negative the impact that social media would have had on our young people and on society at large, we would have taken a different course of action 15, 20 years ago. I don’t know that we have the full measure of just how bad the society at large is right now because of social media. We don’t even begin to think how social media is influencing our choices because we’ve already passed the consciousness stage. There are subconscious choices that our teenagers, our young people, our young adults are already making because of social media influences and algorithms that are defining their choices for them. And parents and legacy heritage relationships are no longer making those choices. We don’t yet even fully understand how bad and how infiltrated our relationships are because of outside influences. And if you think you’ve got a handle on it, it’s much worse than you think.
So, what’s to be done about it? It’s time for the Church to be intentional. It’s time for the Church to not just go along with the flow. It’s time for the Church to be intentional about what we do. If the Church doesn’t make a stand on it, if the Church doesn’t show the way on it, there is no government that’s going to show the way because governments are influenced by the people. The people. And who’s influencing the people? Algorithms. Money. Lifestyle choices. The Church has got to be intentional.
I mean to say, part of the reason I wanted to show you that, is at 18 years old, that picture that was taken there was at my, it was a graduation celebration. I jumped out of an aeroplane and parents and friends were invited to come and stand at the airfield and watch you jump out of the plane. And then when you got onto the ground, you had time to go and change into your ‘step outs’. Those days, the military still wore ‘step outs’, and you got changed into your ‘step outs’. And so, it was your last jump in the cycle. You had to do nine jumps, operational jumps, to be able to qualify to put those wings on your head.
At the age of 18, I was qualified to jump out of an aeroplane. I was qualified to participate in warfare. I was a fully qualified, that picture that you saw, I was a fully, fully qualified paratroop-jumping, parachute-jumping, military-trained, fighting machine. If you look closely there, I have a little thing on my chest here that says I got good marks in handling a rifle. Anyway, I was about to go into another six months of learning. Guerilla warfare, conventional warfare, hand-to-hand combat. I was about to learn skills to survive if you got caught behind enemy lines, I was about to be taught many things that were, as far as the military was concerned, they were there to redefine, reshape and remould you into what you must become. And they wanted – certainly, us, we were considered to be the special forces of South Africa at that point in time, the highest pinnacle of that was Recce number one and they did most of their recruiting from our battalion.
But you know, they were wanting to make me into a fighting machine. You know what they did? You will march to the same beat. You will wear the same clothes. You will do the same exercises. You will learn to trust each other with your very life. You will fight together. You will hurt together. You will eat together. You will occasionally shower in the same shower. Because for the second year, there were many times we didn’t shower for weeks or have a proper shower. But, you were going to suffer hardship and you were going to be moulded into a machine. We started off with 600 men that wanted to pass, we ended up with 97.
Their whole process was an elimination psychologically and physically to break you down, to mould you into the machine they wanted you to be. The military was intentional about creating a weapon, a human weapon. It’s warfare, it’s violence. What’s it designed to do? Number one, it’s supposed to be designed to defend innocent people. Number two, it’s designed to be able to be a target for a governing body that says, “Take our strength and go and target a specific set of targets.” Hey?
Well, you know what the Bible says? The Bible says that we must be like military people. We have got to be like soldiers in the army of God that are not worried about all the affairs of life. I’ll tell you, that picture that you saw of me there, for six months, we were focused, we were focused, they kept us focused. You were up any time of day, any time of night, they would come in there. You never knew when you were going to sleep for 24 hours or not. You never knew when you were going to eat. You never knew when you were going to shower. You never knew when you were going to do stuff. There was a period of time where they made us do inspections. But after a while, they said it’s no longer about inspections, it’s about just keeping your stuff neat because we now are going to try and break you. And so, you don’t know what’s going to happen next. But all the while they’re confusing you to mould you. Huh? You know, that’s the tactic of someone who wants you to be really efficient at violence.
God doesn’t want us to be efficient at violence, He wants us to be efficient in His Word. He wants us to be efficient in standing our ground against an enemy that knows how to come after you and target your weakness and take you out at any way that he can. He has got a well… people who say that the demonic world is a world of chaos, and they don’t understand that the devil was created in the presence of God. He knows exactly how God works. It’s not like the devil doesn’t know how God works. The only role model the devil’s got is God. He’s got no creative ability to create another system. The only role model the devil’s got is God. So he must counterfeit what God’s got. So what does he do? He comes with his own weapons to target you when you’re weak.
You know, we were taught, I mean, there were days when we would build trenches and we were learning conventional warfare and we would build trenches and dig trenches, and you would… there was lots of stuff going on. And then they would come with, it’s part of the training, you know, they’d come with attacks in the middle of the night, early hours of the morning, strange things. The next minute there’s flares going up, there’s just ammunition going everywhere… lots of stuff going on, and you’re trying to sleep and now you’ve got to fight. It’s designed to train you.
I learned a lot from that, about how the devil works. Because let me tell you, if you had a good night’s sleep and you wake up in the morning and you are fit and you are strong and you got all your equipment on and someone says, “Come, let’s go!” You say, “Come let’s go.” But don’t sleep for five days, or have very little sleep for five days, and it is four o’clock in the morning and your head is going like this, [Pastor John’s head bobbing] and you are trying to stay awake and then the devil comes, you are least prepared for the attack.
When do you think he is going to come after you? When you are all strong? Check the words coming out – my confession is strong. My giving is strong. My life is strong. The devil says, “Stay away from that person. They are doing all right, right now. They will give us a bloody nose.” Ah, but then you just get slack with your confession and you start doing this and you start doing that and you don’t come to church as much, and all your language and your words that are coming out are about how much you trust in the system, trust in the system, trust in the system. Next minute, before you know it, he has got you on a path going in a whole different direction and you still think you are heading in the right way.
Because he is not going to come and beat you over the head, he is going to take you around the corner behind the thing, behind the shed. “Ah, now I have got you isolated and you are alone, now I can beat you to death.” But if you are with a whole bunch of strong people, he has got very little chance of nailing you.
I didn’t mean really, honestly, I didn’t really mean to make this all so much about the military talk this morning. This is by the Holy Spirit. But as a fighting force, we were feared. Because we were so well trained. We were feared in those days. We were considered one of the premier fighting forces in the world. This is a fact. We were so well trained. When you are a well-trained soldier, there is very little that can upset what God wants to do through you. What is the world system trying to do? Break down the system of God. Break down the army of God. Make it less efficient. Make it less effective. Make it less disciplined. Make it less connected.
So what happens in the Church today? Everybody in the Church today wants to have church that says, “I hear what you say, Pastor John, I hear what the Bible says, but I want to make my own choices. I choose God but I want to also make my own choices. So, don’t tell me I don’t choose God because I do. But I want to make my own choices. I want to make my own choices.” Well, God is not going to stop you. Just like I read in Joshua, God is not going to stop you.
The whole reason you look like God and you are like God on the earth is because you have choice. No other creature on the earth has the choice that you can make. And so, because you have choice, God is not going to stop you. We have such an easy lifestyle in a democratic country and Western democracies think that our walk with God should look like we can vote. So I will vote what is good for me that I hear from the pastor, I will vote. I will vote what he says is good. I like that, I will vote. He didn’t… That I didn’t like that so much. I vote that is good. I vote that is not bad. Well, how do you vote? You just say, “I don’t like what he said, I am not going to do it.”
So I have told you before, many times, don’t do what I say. If I am preaching the Bible, go and study it for yourself. And then if it is true, then you must make a choice. Here is the problem. People want to express an opinion about what the pastor says without going to study it and therein they make a choice. I will study many other things. I will go study, I will go study, I will go study. I will study, I will study, I will study, I will go study many things. I will research many things. I will do many things. But I won’t go and study the Bible. I won’t go and find out more about what God says I must live my life like. Ja neh? Praise the Lord.
I am going to finish with this passage of Scripture. I am reading from The Message translation. I had been reading the Scripture in the last two weeks. Romans five verse three. This is the Message Translation. 3 There’s more to come. We continue to shout our praise even when we’re hemmed in with troubles, because we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us. (Romans 5:3 MSG)
When you are in training, by God, don’t seek to be set free from it. I will tell you, we found ourselves in a situation one day when we were ambushed and we had no clue that the enemy was lining us up with machine guns. They came in very quietly while we were having lunch. They came in and they set up machine guns, three machine guns. They took aim at us and they opened fire. And in the next, what seemed like an eternity, but it was probably no more than about a minute or two. If it was even that long. All the stuff that I learned in training; I was sitting next to my buddy that was with me at the time. The same stick. We were there together. And when those bullets started to fly, instinctive training took over. We didn’t even think about it. We didn’t even, we weren’t even able to get our heads into gear about words that came out of our mouths. It just happened. I mean, training kicked in. We took cover, we had our weapons ready to go. We were firing back. We were doing everything that we were taught before we even knew what we were doing, we were on a counter-offensive. What happened? When it counted most training took over.
So you say, “Well, Pastor John, you know, you talk about coming to church, you talk about tithing, you talk about giving, you talk about loving, you talk about many other things.” It’s the reason why God calls us disciples. If you love Me, you will do My Word, you will become My disciples. There is a reason for it because a disciple is a disciplined one. Right? And so the discipline of being in the Word, of preparing yourself spiritually, is the only discipline that is going to save you when the system comes to rule you. If you think the system is going to give you as a person a free pass, you are mistaken because inherent in the devil is to kill, to steal, and to destroy.
And let me tell you, I’ve been talking about intentional relationships and there is no one more intentional than the devil about you. You are a target because you represent the image of God, you represent the life of God, you represent a real threat to him and you are a target. And he is intentional about stopping you from walking in your destiny. “Oh, you’re a Christian? No problem, you just be a Christian that lives life in the system. You are no threat to me. You become a Christian that becomes a disciplined one, I see a military spirit being in the making.”
Let me tell you, in the end, it is only the people who know who they are in Christ Jesus that are going to actually be the difference makers. It’s not all Christians. Many, many people spend their whole lives trying to find a purpose. Many people spend their whole lives trying to find a reason for living. So they find a reason in excelling in the system. “Look how well I do in the system.” Really, that’s the reason you are alive? Do you know how quickly that is going to disappear out of your life? I showed you a picture of me when I was 18 years old, look at me now. I mean, I still look pretty good, but I’m a lot older. And just like that, my life is almost over. Just like that. Just like that, my life is almost over. I just got started and my life is almost over.
My value systems? My value systems mean nothing to you. My value systems. I’ve got to get in your face about this, the Holy Spirit wants me to get in your face about this. My value systems mean nothing to you. Nothing. My value systems are worth nothing to you because they are my value systems. So what are you going to do with my value systems? They are a value system that is one human to another. So what? But if I say to you, here is Jesus’ value systems, if you want to use it as a value system, now say, here is what Jesus stands for, it means something to you. Now it is no longer based on whether I live up to my values or not because I can fail at my values under pressure.
Do you know what they say about people that are in the military? If they get caught and they start to get tortured, it’s not a matter of whether if they are going to break, it’s only a matter of when they are going to break. I don’t care who says they are not going to break, they will break. Do you know what it means? It means they have a value system that I won’t divulge secrets, but you put me under enough pressure, then I will.
Well, my value systems mean nothing to you, but what I can present to you is what Jesus is. What I can present to you is what the standard of the life of the Word of God is. I can present to you the One who died for you, Who was the perfect value system because He represented the value system of not His own values, but the Father’s values. And He comes and He says while He is on the earth, “I don’t come to present Myself to you. If you see and hear Me talk, if you see Me live, you see the Father. If you see Me, you see the Father, whatever you hear Me say, you hear the Father say. I’ve not even come to present Myself to you other than what I am by the Father’s will.”
And now we must think that our values have some sort of value? There is a time coming, you know, let me just be blunt about it for a minute. 50 years ago, there was hardly anybody that got divorced because the human society value system was: You stay married no matter what. And now, two-thirds of people are getting divorced. What happened to the human values? Those human values were based on Biblical values of marriage, but they had no spirit life to sustain them. So when the pressure of human values overcame it, there was no spirit life to sustain it. And that is always going to be the plight of humanity. We are always going to have a fluid value system, which is why I say many things are changing our values. They are changing our thought patterns, they are changing our emotions, they are changing us, and we don’t even know how much they are affecting us because it is so subtle, in your face all the time.
It is so subtle because it is trying to undermine our very ability to make choices to serve the most High God and that He is the Lord that we must serve, He is the Master, He is Almighty God, He is the One who came and sent His Son to die for us, He is the One who gave us the very life that we have today, and it is our choice to serve Him. It is our choice to make a decision to say, I am coming to church not because I’m forced to come to church, but because I want to. I want to go to Bible school because I want to learn more about Him, not because I can learn more things about Church. I want to go and be part of the things that God is doing because I’m going to be part of what His Body is doing on the earth because that’s where my strength lies. That’s where my purpose lies. That’s where my destiny is.
So, I have to go back to your own debate you’re going to have within your own mind, and you – I know how the devil works, and I know how your brain works because I’m as human as you are and your brain will work, “But, Pastor John, you are the pastor of the church, you must say these things because you wouldn’t have a church if you didn’t say these things.” Well, you know, I’ve sat in the same pews as you have and I’ve listened to preachers. But God didn’t call me because I heard preachers and I said, “You know, that’s a good life to live. You’re a guy who stands in the pulpit and you can preach and you can have influence and people give you money and so that’s a really cool thing to have – be a pastor.” Huh. Really? You don’t have a clue what a real pastor does. I’m not talking about a professional pastor. I’m talking about a God-called pastor. Amen. Hallelujah.
You know, the devil will come to you sneaky like afterwards when you are out of this anointing setting and your mind starts to think about what I said. “And… and… you know… that way that he said it – I don’t like his attitude. And you know what, hey, he started the whole meeting talking about money. Magtig daai pastoor. You know, it’s like every other pastor, it’s all about money.” Thank God, He blessed me with money before I ever came to become a Pastor.
Let me finish this. I’m going to try here. 4 and how that patience in turn forges the tempered steel of virtue, keeping us alert for whatever God will do next. See, that’s your virtue and your values of whatever God will do next. 5 In alert expectancy such as this, we’re never left feeling shortchanged. Quite the contrary—we can’t round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit! 6 Christ arrives right on time to make this happen. He didn’t, and doesn’t, wait for us to get ready. He presented himself for this sacrificial death when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything to get ourselves ready. (Romans 5:3-6 MSG)
If you want to be so truthful as to have an opinion about what happens in Church, then you should have the truthfulness to have an opinion about an emotion that you experience when you resist the Word of God. Then you’ve got to be just as honest and say, “I recognize that as rebelling against the messenger that God has sent to speak a message.” And your first rebellion is going to say, “I don’t trust that this man is a messenger from God, he’s just a man.” It’s the first rebellion. Thank God that Jesus says, “I go past your rebellion and I do whatever I can to help you anyway.” What a gracious, amazing God. And yet, He’s still got to leave you to your choice.
Have I presented a case to you today? I feel a bit like the Apostle Paul today when he was standing in front of one of the kings, you know, I think it was, I forget now, King Agrippa, one of those. But he stood in front of him and he had a debate with him and he said to him, “Paul, you almost persuade me to become a Christian. You were so good in your argument.” Well, I trust that by the Holy Spirit today, he has argued on His behalf that it’s time to be intentional about your relationship with Him. Not just circumstantial, not just convenient, but intentional.
6 …And even if we hadn’t been so weak, we wouldn’t have known what to do anyway. 7 We can understand someone dying for a person worth dying for, and we can understand how someone good and noble could inspire us to selfless sacrifice. 8 But God put His love on the line for us by offering His Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to Him. (Romans 5:6-8 MSG)
That is a great God. You see, that is the God that says, “Here is a value system you can live by. I put My whole everything on the line for you. I loved you when you weren’t worth loving. I died for you when you weren’t worth dying for. When there was no reason for anybody to die for you, I chose to die for you. I chose to become sin so you don’t have to pay the price for sin. I chose to become something way beyond what you could ever dream or hope for. You could have an inheritance in God for eternity. I chose that for you if you will choose Me.” And you didn’t have any say, so there was no claim to what God could do for you. There was no nobility in whatever you lived for, there was no performance that you could have performed to warrant and say, “God come and do something for me so that I can change my destiny, I can have a different kind of inheritance, I can have a different purpose.”
There was no claim that you could make, there was no right that you could stand on, there was no goodness that you could present for a case of yourself. There was nothing that you could say, “Look at me how You must come and die for me.” On the contrary, you were so useless you were so without no good to Him, and yet, He said, “I will come and die for you so that if you choose it you can have the good that I have. You can have the inheritance that I have for you.”
Come on, people, that is a God that you can put your trust in. That is a God that you can say, “I will have Your values, I will have Your virtue.” And God is so amazing that He says, “You don’t even have the strength to take it. You don’t even have the discipline to live this way. You don’t have what it takes to live My kind of life. You don’t know what it even costs to come and live all eternally in My presence or even while you’re on the earth. You don’t know what it takes, you haven’t got a clue what it takes, you don’t even have anything that it takes to do that, so you can’t do it. So, I’m going to help you even further – I’m going to send you the Holy Ghost. The Holy Spirit is going to come and live within you and He’s going to give you the power so that you can overcome your own human weakness, so that in your own humanity, you can say, ‘I’ve got something that I can rely on.’” And He says, “Now, hold on, people. I’m going to send you a few messengers, people that I have raised up from before eternity began, I raised them up.” The first words my father spoke over me when I was born. He said to my mother, “Here’s your preacher.” Those first words were the words that I still live with my whole life, for I’m a messenger of God for you. And I can stand with confidence and stand here and say my values mean nothing to you because I’m just a messenger.
The One that really means something is God Almighty, it’s Jesus. It’s Jesus. He’s the One that means something. His life is what means something. He’s the One that died for us and rose for us. He’s the one that put everything on the line. He put it so much on the line, He was having a time with God, the Father, in the Garden of Gethsemane and He said, “Father, if there’s any way that I can go through this thing, if there’s any other way that we can do it, please let this cup pass from Me. Nevertheless, not My will, but Your will be done.” And those words echo through eternity, “Not My will, but Your will be done,” and He laid the standard of everything that we can live by now because He said, “You don’t have the ability to say, not my will, but Your will be done but I give you the Holy Spirit to help you to say those words.”
And when He rested on the cross there, He said to the Father, He said, “Father, it’s done. Now is the time I can only put my trust in You like never before. Into Your hands do I give My spirit.” Because from that moment, He became judgment. The Father judged all of our sins on Jesus and in that moment, He had no choice but to give Himself up to the will of the Father and say, “I’ve got to trust my future in You now. I’ve lived my whole life trusting in You in this natural body. Now, all of the training, all of the discipline, all of the living by the Father’s words, by the Father’s will, has caused Me to say not my will, but Your will, and now when I know and realize that judgment is coming; Father, why have You forsaken Me.” Because in that moment, God had to judge Him and turn His back on His Son, because He was judging sin and He never knew what that felt like, Jesus, He has never been separated from His Father in all eternity but in this moment He chose to be separated because that’s the only way that our sin could be judged.
And we think we have a democratic right to vote about our walk with God? I’ll choose when to come to church. I’ll choose what to do about church. I’ll say what I’ll give to the church and not give to the church. You know what that tells me? It tells me you don’t understand yet the price that Jesus paid for you. You don’t know, you don’t have it in your spirit yet, this great, great gift that Jesus has given you. This great price that He paid for you to even say, “I’ll choose,” and in your, me and you, and I put myself in that category; in our arrogance, in our self-pride, we think we have a choice, and God says still you have a choice because I made you in My image. But do we really have a choice? Do you want to live life at the highest standard or do you just want to live life mediocre?
“Well, you don’t understand how much I’ve achieved in my life. I’m not mediocre by any sense of the word. Don’t call me mediocre.” Oh, I hear some proud talking. I hear some arrogance talking. I hear somebody saying something that means ‘I trust me.’ I didn’t hear any of those words from Jesus. Do you read that in the Bible? Do you read that in the Bible? In fact, Jesus says, “Now, Father, the time has come to glorify the Son so that Your glory can be seen in the glory of the Son.” Everything was about the Father, it’s all about the Father. It’s about the Father and then Jesus says to His disciples, “You don’t understand but I’ve got to go away because I can’t be of any good to you in Myself because there’s a Holy Spirit who’s coming and He can be with all of you all the time, simultaneously all the time, all of you, all together; to help you, to strengthen you, to help you make those decisions.” Hallelujah. We have to be intentional about this. Hallelujah.
Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. I want to tell you what’s happening, that God started doing things in this church and there’s a young generation of people that God is raising here that are intentional about their walk with God. And they have made intentional choices to say, I’m not serving the system, no matter how much smarter I am and how much talent I have because I recognize that I have nothing without Him. They’ve already made that choice to say I have nothing without Him. They are so way ahead of the world’s game, the world can’t catch them anymore. The world can’t defeat them anymore. The world doesn’t have a grip on them anymore. They are free from the system. The system doesn’t control them anymore, they are free. Hallelujah. Praise Jesus. Praise Jesus.
You know, I feel like this is a holy moment that God has brought us to. I’m about to get on a plane to go to America and this is a holy moment and I believe that it’s time for us just to make a decision before God that we are going to have intentional relationship with Him and so, I’m not going to lead you and have you come and kneel at the front here because, you know, today it’s either in your heart by the Holy Spirit or it’s not, and the quality choice is made by you alone, and not because of something that you do in front of everybody else. And I’ve come to know that very often, you’ve got to go and face yourself after this meeting and you’ve got to look at yourself in the mirror and you’ve got to say, “Hey, what are you doing today, boy?” Or if you’re a gal, “What are you doing today?” It’s time to give God a priority in your life, don’t you think? Praise the Lord. Won’t you stand with me, please?
You know, part of the reason I think these moments can be so powerful is because this is a quiet choice you make. This is a choice you’ve got to make in your heart. I’m going to lead you in a prayer, but this prayer won’t mean anything unless you are determined to follow through with this prayer. And I would encourage you to meditate on this prayer and to take this prayer for yourself and say, “I’m going to live this prayer.” Yes? [Congregation: Yes.]
So, it’s a very simple prayer. It’s a prayer of choice. So, will you just repeat this prayer after me and say; Lord Jesus – put your hand on your heart and say; Lord Jesus, where I lack understanding, I ask You to show me the power of what You did when You died on the cross for me. I receive the ability to live life free from previous choices and I choose to give my life to You, in Jesus’ name. Amen. Hallelujah. This is a wonderful thing. This is a wonderful thing. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Thank you, Jesus.
Pastor Sharon, will you come and join me here? Is Pastor Garth anywhere in the building? Is he around? Is he in the back with his children somewhere? If he’s listening to the message… Quinton, maybe you can just go into the back and see if he’s there. Come up here, Pastor G. Hallelujah. I’m going. Pastor Christi is leaving with me. There’s a bunch of people, we’re all going together.
And so, it is my responsibility to declare in front of you, because of this, the senior leader that I am in this ministry, that I delegate the responsibility and the authority of managing the ministry. While I’m gone, I delegate it to Pastor Sharon first and to Pastor Garth with her. There are many others here who will help to function in the ministry, but this is a powerful thing that I do here because what it allows is it allows them to be authorised to take care of spiritual matters and it authorises them to do things on our behalf in the spirit and in the natural while I’m away. It doesn’t take me out of the loop if they need me, but it delegates the responsibility to them.
And so I pray for you (Pastor Sharon and Pastor Garth). Won’t you just stretch out your hands and agree with me? I pray for you that you will function and flow in the gifts and the callings that God has on your lives and that you will flow with anointing, you will flow with the blessing of God and you will be empowered to cause the people in the church to grow and to be strengthened. Amen. And that you will make wise decisions and you will do things under the inspiration and the leading of the Holy Spirit. Amen. And I pray that God brings all the resources and all of the things that you need around you to help you make the choices you need to make in every moment of every day. Amen. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord. Hallelujah. Thank you.
Well, you can stand here with me. I just want to bless you now and I pray that in the name of Jesus, you are blessed, you are blessed going out, you are blessed coming in. You are blessed in whatever you put your hands to, it will prosper. Wherever your feet go, God blesses you there, in Jesus’ name. I declare that you are surrounded by the Word of God and the blood of Jesus and that He gives His angels charge over you and that no weapon formed against you will prosper, but you are protected by the Word of God. Hallelujah. In Jesus’ name. I declare and I pray that God’s great peace comes upon you. I pray that you will understand the great works to which God has called each one of you to do. That you will not live, from this day, that you will not live as a mediocre, ordinary Christian, but that you will live as a powerful, supernatural soldier in the body of Christ. Hallelujah. Glory to Jesus. Glory to Jesus. Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah.
And for those people that are going to fly and be with us in America, in California, since you’re going to be on the aeroplane with me, most of you, you are already protected. [Pastor John laughs] Hallelujah. Because God takes care of me, so you’re on the same plane, so He takes care of all of you. But we all agree that everybody that’s going, they will come back with something supernatural for you. They will come back with something that God imparts to them that they will come and impart to you. And that our travels are blessed and that everything, everywhere we go, our luggage arrives on time, our luggage has gone through smoothly, no issues on aeroplanes, no issues in airports, no holdups, no distractions, no anything. We are free to fly. We are free to ride and we are free to come back to you, in Jesus’ name. Amen. Hallelujah. Thank you for being in church. God bless you. Amen. Bye julle almal.
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